How do I research keywords? This is a common question I get from clients. And my immediate response is… Long Tail Pro! With the update to Google Adwords Keyword Planner (rendering it near worthless) without paying for Google ads and to test actually search volume for keywords, the generic Avg. search volume range they provide gives you ZERO actionable data! See example below:

3) KWFinder is one of the "newer" kids on the block, but it's probably just about the easiest way I have found to find new long-tail keywords quickly. A couple of things I like about this tool is that it allows me to create lists of keywords. So I can group up my different sites by lists and revisit them at a later date. I can export the data to CSV and start building out campaigns. It also keeps a nice scrolling list of the last 20+ keywords you have looked up. The SEO difficulty indicator comes in very handy as well! As far as ease of use goes, KWFinder wins hands down.

Bing Webmaster Toolbox: Oh yeah, remember that other search engine? Yes that’s right Bing has a whole collection of tools of their own, including keyword tools. The data will be taken from Bing itself, which means that you should be able to make relative assumptions about keyword popularity. because lets face it, Bing users aren’t that different than Google’s.

Long tail keywords can find people who are later in the buying cycle, and more ready to buy. For example, somebody searching for “tents” is probably early in the buying cycle, just starting to research what they want. Whereas somebody who searches for “North Face Kaiju 4 person tent” already knows what they want, and is more likely to be ready to buy.
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How do I research keywords? This is a common question I get from clients. And my immediate response is… Long Tail Pro! With the update to Google Adwords Keyword Planner (rendering it near worthless) without paying for Google ads and to test actually search volume for keywords, the generic Avg. search volume range they provide gives you ZERO actionable data! See example below:
When you’re running the Rank Checker feature sometimes you see Google’s captchas pop up and which can be annoying. I have only experienced this on a computer with an old OS (Windows XP) though; I haven’t seen this on Windows 7 or Windows 10 machines. Again, if you close the software and reopen it after a few minutes, everything will be okay again. UPDATE: one of the latest updates fixed this issue.
How do I know that the KC score measures competition accurately? When I first started using the KC feature – I didn’t know for sure. But I’ve been using it since December of 2012. I’ve published literally hundreds of different articles (in different niches) around keywords with low to medium KC scores and I have a pretty good feel for the accuracy. More than 5 years of successfully ranking for low competition keywords has convinced me to completely trust the KC scores that are calculated within Long Tail Pro.
The objective of keyword research is to generate, with good precision and recall, large number of terms that are highly relevant yet non-obvious to the given input keyword.[2] Process of keyword research involves brainstorming and the use of keyword research tools. To achieve the best SEO results, it is important to optimize a website as well as backlinks for the most relevant keywords. It is good practice to search for related keywords that have low competition and still a high number of searches. This makes it easier to achieve a higher rank in search engines which usually results in higher web traffic. The downside of this practice is that the website is optimized for alternative keywords instead of the main keyword; main keywords might be very difficult to rank for due to high competition.[3] There are three essential concepts to consider when conducting keyword research. Good keywords are closely related to the subject of the website. Most search engines use an internal quality system to check website relevance related to possible keywords, a non relevant keyword is unlikely to rank well for a website.[4] Good Keyword that are highly competitive are less likely to rank in the top. Keywords that have no monthly searches generate no traffic and therefore are useless for SEO. Keyword stuffing in a web page should be avoided.
Spencer, it seems like you got out at just the right time and made your money? Seeing as Google has basically stopped giving access to their free keyword tool. I own the FULL lifetime license $290+ I think is was. Now Longtail Pro is useless due to the restrictions that Google has put in place. Do you know what the future plans are for Longtail Pro to get around this issue that I’m sure everyone is facing? Or can you get some feedback from the new owners?
Keyword Researcher is an easy-to-use Keyword Discover Tool. Once activated, it emulates a human using Google Autocomplete, and repeatedly types thousands of queries into Google. Each time a partial phrase is entered, Google tries to predict what it thinks the whole phrase might be. We simply save this prediction. And, as it turns out, when you do this for every letter of the alphabet (A-Z), then you’re left with hundreds of great Long Tail keyword phrases.

He is the co-founder of Neil Patel Digital. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Neil is a New York Times bestselling author and was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

It's wonderful to deal with keywords that have 5,000 searches a day, or even 500 searches a day, but in reality, these popular search terms actually make up less than 30% of the searches performed on the web. The remaining 70% lie in what's called the "long tail" of search. The long tail contains hundreds of millions of unique searches that might be conducted a few times in any given day, but, when taken together, comprise the majority of the world's search volume.
This tool was originally created to carry out keyword research for paid campaigns using Google's AdWords platform. However, it can also be used to research organic keywords, providing estimated global/local monthly search volumes for keywords (i.e. their popularity) and their competition (i.e. how difficult they are to rank for) for organic search.

It's important to check that you have a mix of head terms and long-tail terms because it'll give you a keyword strategy that's well balanced with long-term goals and short-term wins. That's because head terms are generally searched more frequently, making them often (not always, but often) much more competitive and harder to rank for than long-tail terms. Think about it: Without even looking up search volume or difficulty, which of the following terms do you think would be harder to rank for?

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Just came on this program this morning and downloaded a trial version. Could this program really be only $97? Is this portion of the program effective or do you need the $300-plus Platinum version? The KC score, available in the $300-plus version, seems critical to making the whole thing work really well. Are you possibly leaving money and success on the table by not biting the bullet and going for the expensive program?
Long Tail Pro by Spencer Haws is the most useful keyword research tool that you can use for your internet marketing. Thousands of webmasters depend on the tool to generate thousands of keywords. It is such effective that it has dominated the keyword search market for the few years it has been into existence. It would cost you less than one hundred dollars to have access to this important life-changing tool.
5. Use the Keyword Competitiveness “Fetch Now” feature. Now that your list is trimmed down after you applied all those filters in the previous step, you use the KC “Fetch Now” feature that saves you time in retrieving all that invaluable information. Again, depending on the number of keywords it has to check it make take a while (remember that LTP needs to retrieve information from several sources including Google and Moz). During this bulk check if LTP prompts with Google captchas to fill out, just close the software and wait 10 minutes to reopen it and continue your work. (This issue should have already been fixed now with the latest updates to the tool.)
Here’s where this tool’s value really comes in: Keyword Tool has keyword research tools for multiple search engines, not just Google. If you want to do keyword research for YouTube, Bing, Amazon, the App Store, or eBay, they’ve got keyword suggestions (and data) for you. If YouTube videos, for example, are a central part of your marketing strategy, this could easily be worth the money.

2) SEMrush- This tool offers fantastic competitive research around domains to find what keywords could be driving traffic for your competitors. Looking at paid keywords ad spend can also help you know which keywords might have monetary value worth pursuing organically. If a competitor is willing to spend a high ad budget on terms and you think they do a good job running their ad campaign, then its a good indication it is worth organic ranking effort.

This is another common reason people won’t get Long Tail Pro. Their stubbornness can stem from many reasons – including the two mentioned above. Too stubborn to pay for it (can be confused with too cheap to pay). Or too stubborn to learn about the benefits. But the main reason is that lots of people actually think that they are better off without Long Tail Pro. Either they do their keyword research the free (hard) way which takes a LOT of time and knowledge and usually isn’t very effective. Or they use a different keyword research tool which they think is better. Let me just tell you – there is no better or more effective keyword research tool than Long Tail Pro. More than 70,000 marketers can’t be wrong and over the past few years Long Tail Pro has become the standard when it comes to keyword research tools.

Let's say you're considering starting a new website, or venturing into a new product niche. And, suppose you'd like to somehow determine how much search buzz is currently hovering around this topic. You can use Keyword Researcher to get a "feel" for how much interest is actually out there. For example, let's say you were selling cameras. Then you might consider the following:

Pricing plans and pricing structures for Long Tail Pro have changed several times over the years since I first purchased it. I’m not going to make the mistake of publishing any pricing information here. I’ve done that in the past on this blog and I still have several old posts that are live with incorrect pricing information. There is a good chance that people will still be reading this very post several years from now – and surely the pricing that is available today will be different in the future. Just like it was way different in the past. Please click on any of my links within this post or anywhere else on my site to see the latest prices for Long Tail Pro.
"I've been doing keyword research for years, and I can tell you that dealing with hundreds of keywords and dozens of spreadsheets is enough to make anyone lose the will to live. Keyword Researcher is great because not only does it let you easily find keywords that people are actually searching for, but it has a clean and simple interface that makes it easy to keep track of what you've found. If I'm stuck and need some new ideas, I just fire it up and usually find several things to write about in a few minutes."

Google Webmaster SEO Starter Guide - Originally written for Google Employees to improve website performance with users and search engines. Related Terms: SERP - Search Engine Rank Position | PageRank (PR) - Named for Google Co-founder, Larry Page. The PR Scale of 0-10 rates a web page. In the past, rank was based on the number of high ranking links pointing to the website. Recently factors like relevance and quality have gained importance. This website's current PR rating:

Great Top 10 keyword research tools list. Thank you for posting Robbie! I really appreciated the feedback from the experts. There are a definitely a few tools here worthy of taking note of. I have also been using DYNO Mapper (http://www.dynomapper.com) as a keyword research tool. DYNO Mapper is a visual sitemap generator that delivers keywords on all pages of any site. The user simply inputs any existing URL into the system and it will scan thousands of pages.

2) SEMrush- This tool offers fantastic competitive research around domains to find what keywords could be driving traffic for your competitors. Looking at paid keywords ad spend can also help you know which keywords might have monetary value worth pursuing organically. If a competitor is willing to spend a high ad budget on terms and you think they do a good job running their ad campaign, then its a good indication it is worth organic ranking effort.

WordStream's Negative Keyword Tool reduces wasteful PPC spending and improves ROI by preventing your AdWords PPC ads from showing on irrelevant searches. Enter a keyword to get a list of negative keyword suggestions. Then select the ones that aren't relevant to your campaigns and export the results for use in your AdWords account. As a result, your ads will be more relevant to searchers, grab a much more targeted audience and reduce your overall ad spend.
He is the co-founder of Neil Patel Digital. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Neil is a New York Times bestselling author and was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.
6. Filters. On the top area of the main pane, you can find the “Filters”. These will allow you to filter your keyword suggestions list in real time. Just start typing and your list will be filtered accordingly. You can filter for “Keywords” (to only show keywords that include a specific word or words); “Suggested Bid” & “Local Searches” allow you to enter minimum or maximum values; “Advertiser Competition” (this comes in handy, because the higher the competition the more money there is to be made if you target that keyword); “Avg. Amazon Reviews” (a neat feature for those who sell products on Amazon or have an Amazon FBA business — less reviews equal less competition, hence more chances to rank on top of Amazon’s product search pages); “Avg. Keyword Competitiveness” or “KC” is Long Tail Pro’s proprietary metric that calculates how hard it is to rank for a keyword in a range from 0 to 100 — 0 being no competition and 100 impossible to rank for. All of these filter columns can be used to sort the keyword suggestion list as you prefer.
The program works in different operating systems such as Mac, Windows and other operating systems. If you like, you can install the device in more than one operating system. Many users who have Apples have testified that it works well in that operating system. It means that you can install it in different operating systems without paying additional monies for that. If you want Long Tail Pro to work perfectly, you can run it through Adobe Air. Incidentally, it does not cost you anything to have Adobe Air installed in your operating system. However, you have to ensure that your Adobe Air was updated for you to derive maximum benefit from the program. The program can be tried for ten days free. If you do not like the program after the trial, you can decide to buy it. Moreover, the programs enjoy customer support. It remains the best tool you can rely on to support your internet efforts. Also you can learn more about keyword research from spencer haws Here.
The developer of the program Spencer has even modified the program to make it better and faster. Recently, a platinum edition of the software was released. This was to help webmasters in their internet efforts. The new version simplifies the competition process, because it allows its users to store their favorite keywords and get them anytime they need them. Moreover, the newer version makes it easier for its user to track their website ranking in all the search engines.
I love Moz’s interface and how they give you data on the keywords. It’s easy-to-read, making it an ideal solution for both experts and newbies alike. They’ll show you both numeric and visual representations of a keyword’s monthly search volume, its opportunity for ranking, priority, and difficulty. They’ll also show you keyword suggestions and SERP analysis, which is fantastic and detailed.
You can also filter by query, which is useful when looking at branded queries, or when looking at specific words. For example, only show keywords that include the term "SEO". The graph also allows you to spot trends in across the available metrics and compare week-on-week or month-on-month. This can help you to drill down and monitor progression over time, allowing you to answer questions like "have my branded keywords received more clicks in the last month compared to the previous month?", "has the CTR improved?", "did average positions in Google improve?".
"I've used many keyword tools over the years and Keyword Researcher is up there amongst the most useful of them. Apart from being a great way to get ideas for content, as an AdWords consultant, I also use it to uncover words and phrases that my clients would not want to be bidding on (negative keywords). This is a real time saver for me and a budget enhancer for my clients! All in all, this is a great app and should be used by any professional search engine marketer."
Although more and more keywords are getting encrypted by Google every day, another smart way to come up with keyword ideas is to figure out which keywords your website is already getting found for. To do this, you'll need website analytics software like Google Analytics or HubSpot's Sources tool. Drill down into your website's traffic sources, and sift through you organic search traffic bucket to identify the keywords people are using to arrive at your site.
Tip: Instead of targeting large keywords (with lots of monthly searches) in one main article – try targeting lots of long tail keywords in lots of different articles. I’ve been having success with this strategy for a long time now – and more recently Spencer and his team at Niche Pursuits have been using this strategy and talking extensively about it.